Burkina Faso reports it has turned down an offer from the administration of President Donald Trump to accept deportees from the US.
The West African nation was asked if it would take non-citizens being deported by the U.S., as well as its own citizens, Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said on Thursday on national television.
“Of course, this offer, which we found indecent then, is completely opposed to the value of dignity, which forms part of the very essence of the vision of Capt. Ibrahim Traoré,” he said, referring to the nation’s military leader.
The statement was made just hours after the U.S. Embassy in the country’s capital, Ouagadougou, suspended most visa services for Burkina Faso citizens, referring applications to its embassy in neighboring Togo. The embassy did not provide a reason for the action.
Referencing an American diplomatic note blaming Burkinabe citizens for failing to adhere to visa use regulations, Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré labeled the action as a potential “pressure tactic” and added, “Burkina Faso is a land of dignity, not deportation.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou did not have an immediate response to a request for comment.
Over 40 deportees have been deported to Africa since July after the Trump government made largely secret deals with at least five African countries to accept migrants under a new third-country deportation program. Rights activists and others have been protesting the program.
The U.S. has deported to the tiny African countries of Eswatini, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Ghana. It also has an agreement with Uganda, although no deportations there have been made public.
Six deportees remain in an unnamed facility in South Sudan, and Rwanda has not indicated where it is keeping seven deportees. Eleven of the 14 deportees who were deported to Ghana last month filed a lawsuit against the government there for keeping them in what they termed deplorable conditions in a military camp on the outskirts of the capital city of Accra.
Human Rights Watch last month reported that the Trump administration made financial inducements to a number of African states to take in deportees. The rights organization reported that it had seen written contracts indicating that Eswatini will be paid $5.1 million by the U.S. for migration and border control, and Rwanda will be paid $7.5 million.
